How about a chaiwalla runnin down the aisles offering garam chai to everyone?
Im sure that wud be a winner, especially with the tea loving indians.
Or maybe employ a few scammers, trying to rob every last ruppee/doller/pound e.t.c from tourists? It could be used to ease the foreigners in to what will haunt them on their 'holiday' to india.
How about some stray dogs running around? or a few cows in each class?
That would go down a treat. It would help the indians travelling abroad- prevent home sickness, and it would give a little incling to foreigners; what they r letting themselves in for!

Dont take this too seriously!!!!
And please dont delete me!

Saint Augustine- 'The world is a book and those who do not travel, read only 1 page'

This is not going to be Aishwarya Rai, Miss Universe, (or any of the scores of Miss India/Miss Worlds) giving you a backrub. It will probably be a "maalish-wallah" from Cochin (or whatever its called now) cracking your spine.

Air India should provide services that are REALLY needed. More lavatories - or a dedicated janitor on every flight who keeps them clean, although I'm sure IATA and/or the Air India Cabin Crew Union will have the snits over that.

Folks
The oil massages may be a gimmick alright, but are gimmicks reserved only to Richard Branson et all?
Fine and what is being suggested is something thousnads of westerners pay top dollar to come to the South Indian state of Kerala every year .

Makes more sense than Branson launching the Virgin Servies to India by arriving at the venue atop an elephant!(and it seems the India service is a white elephant for Virigin!)

That's it! I am now totally convinced that this guy really doesn't know "anything" about how to run an airline or the aviation industry for that matter. It is truly a case of bad goes, worse comes. I guess if he really wants to improve AI's service, he should start with the basics, such as improving (by 100 fold) the poor inflight service the airline is famous for.

Also, what happened to the great "on-time" record AI recently posted?? Ahh, I guess not enough planes eh? Well, that'd be a good start. Increase the number of planes in the fleet for god's sake. They've been running on 23 planes for the past I don't know how many years.

Air India's inflight service is no worse than any other carriers, and more often than not, a lot better. However, this maalishwallah nonsense appears to be a way to mimic Virgin's Masseur in the Sky schtick which seems quite absurd to begin with. The times Ive flown Virgin, the so-called Masseuse was nowhere to be seen, and the time I did see her, she was busy reading a magazine because there weren't any takers for the backrub or neckrub or whatever.

Air India need to leapfrog their technological standards inflight - new seats, cabin accoutrements, IFE, uniforms, and a complete makeover so that its mostly Indian passengers can board an Air India plane and say "Wow, I can't believe I'm on Air India." I remember boarding the "Emperor Akbar" in 1975 and was wowed back then because Air India's 747s put everything else in the sky then to shame. Of course, all of that costs $$$$$, and a Masseur from the Malabar coast is a lot, lot cheaper than a 777-200ER with the latest creature comforts.

B747-437B, be careful with the anti-France remarks, I had one deleted even though it was in jest. I agree with most of you, AI needs to focus on the fundamentals before it goes for gimmicks like massages.